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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (5/5)

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is what some would refer to as “peak fiction.” It starts off with Harry being at his aunt and Un

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le's house. He has to get a permission slip signed so he can go to Hogsmead over the school year. His uncle makes a deal with Harry and promises if he behaves while aunt Marge visits


, he will sign the form. Long story short, Harry loses his temper and inflates her like a balloon. After this, he decides to go on the run and leave his house because he thinks he will be sent to Azkaban (wizard prison) for using magic outside of school. He is stopped by the Knight bus, which helps any wizard or witch that is in need. The Knight bus takes him to the Leaky Cauldron in London where he spent the last two weeks of his Summer buying school supplies, going for walks and admiring the brand new broom the Firebolt. In his last week in London, he runs into Ron and Hermione and they are both staying at the Leaky Cauldron. Ron brags about how his family won the lottery and he got to visit Egypt and get a new wand. O


n the train ride to Hogwarts, the train abruptly stops and Ron, Hermione, and Harry start feeling an emptiness in their gut like “all the happiness in the world had suddenly disappeared.” Moments later, Harry was being kissed by a large skinny figure in a shredded black cloak. It looked like the figure was sucking something out of Harry. Before it could finish what it was doing, the man that was sleeping in the same compartment as Harry leaped up from him and cast a white spell that expelled the cloaked figure out of their compartment and out of the train. A few minutes later, Harry woke up from passing out and the man that cast the spell explained that what had attacked Harry was a Dementor and that they sucked the soul out of their victim u


sing the “Dementors kiss.” He also explained that the reason the Dementor had tried to suck his soul away was because he resembled Sirius Black, an escaped criminal from Azkaban who Harry had thought at the time told Lord Voldemort of his parents location so he could kill them. The man introduced himself as Professor Lupin as he gave Harry a piece of chocolate that would make him feel better and he was going to be the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. This wasn’t a surprise to Harry considering that the previous teacher had been replaced every year for a some strange reason like being a vessel for Voldemort or being a raging Narcissist that actually had no idea what he was doing and was casting memory wiping spells and taking credit for other people’s feats and accomplishments. The rest of the train ride Harry was made fun of by Draco Malfoy and his entourage for passing out. As usual the Hogwarts beginning of the school year ceremony was a giant feast and at the end of it Dumbledore gives a speech about how the school will now be swarming with Dementors because Sirius Black is on the run. (because this summary is supposed to be brief I will only be summarizing the main events that happen throughout the school year) About two months into the school year Sirius black attacks the school year and all the students have to


sleep outside their dorms for the night in the Great Hall. About three months into the school Harry has another encounter with the Dementors. He is playing a Quidditch match against Hufflepuff in stormy weather then he sees the golden snitch fly straight up. He and Cedric Diggory both start competing to see who can get it first. After ten seconds Cedric stops going for the snitch because at this point they are both very high. Now its just a race between Harry and himself, just as he’s about to grasp the snitch and win the game a Dementor comes out of nowhere and starts taking Harry’s soul. Before it can finish Harry falls off his broom and right as he’s about to hit the ground Dumbledore saves him. Because Harry’s aunt and uncle did not sign the permission slip for Hogsmeade, Harry wasn’t aloud he wasn’t allowed to go, However Fred and George gave him the Marauders Map which gave him access to all the secret passageways o


ut of the school. He got his invisibility cloak and went to go meet up with Ron and Hermione. WHen he caught up with them he saw that they were being Harassed by Malfoy and his fanboys. So he puts the cloak on and Pants’s Draco and throws snowballs at Crab and Boyle. After two encounters with dementors Harry decides its time to learn the charm that professor Lupin used against the Dementors on the train. When Lupin is teaching it to harry he says to think of the happiest moment in his life and to say Expecto Patronum. Harry had trouble doing this but eventually got better. After practicing Lupin decided it was time to practice on a Boggart (shapeshifter that takes on the form of your worst fear). The first time harry tried the Patronus charm on a boggart he failed but the second time he did it he was successful. At the end of the school year Harry Hermione and Ron are going for a walk then Scabbers runs off into whomping willow. Harry, Ron and Hermione are all then scooped up by the whomping willow and flung around. Once they all escape and go into the tree they are confronted by professor Sirius Black ,Lupin, Snape, and a newly transformed Peter Pett


igrew. Ron was shocked to see that his Pet rat that had been in family for years was actually Peter. Lupin explains that it wasn’t Sirius that betrayed his parent but it was actually Peter. Snape being Snape he still wants to detain Sirius and give him up to the Dementors. Harry pulls a fast one and stuns Snape, after this they all go outside and plan what to do with Sirius. That night it was a full moon which wasn’t too good considering that Lupin was a werewolf. As lupin was turning into a wolf Sirius decided it was a good idea to transform into a dog and lead Lupin into the the forest full of Dementors looking for him. When Harry catches up Sirius he is already getting his soul sucked by one of them. Harry also begins getting his soul sucked when he sees a figure conjure the greatest Patronus charm that hes ever seen shortly after this he passes out. When he wakes up he is in the infirmary with Ron and Hermione he tells them that he thinks it was his father that conjured it even though he’s dead. Hermione pulls out a pocket watch and turns it three times and they go back in the past three hours. This was the way she was able to take extra classes during the year. Harry and Hermione go back to where Harry was getting harassed by the Dementor. Harry realizes that he was the one who conjured the Patronus charm, he leaped from behind the rock they were hiding behind and conjured a magnificent Patronus charm. This book was incredible, its ending was unpredictable. The best part about this book was that it had many plot twists. Throughout this book I feel like the main theme was overcoming your fears.Throughout the book Harry has had three run ins with The Dementors. Throughout all of them he let his fear get the best of him. However on the last occasion he conjured up all his happiness and cast an incredible spell. Another theme in this book is self confidence. This is because the thought of Harry casting a patronus charm as large as the one he saw was foreign to him. This is a great book and I would recommend reading the next one in the serious. “Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire”


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